THE CAUSE OF BABYLON'S FALL IS REVEALED.
By William W. Prescott
The light and understanding and excellent wisdom which were found in Daniel were recognized by him as gifts from God to be used to his glory. The gift of God can not be purchased with money, neither is it to be made a matter of merchandise. The gospel invitation is “without money and without price.” “Freely ye have received, freely give.” “Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation. O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honor: and for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him; and he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified.” The fundamental truth which every man is to recognize, whatever station he may occupy, and whether he has much or little, is that everything comes as a gift from God. Daniel acknowledged this for himself, and taught it to others. And so he repeated to Belshazzar what he declared to Nebuchadnezzar in the interpretation of the dream of the great image, that the kingdom over which Nebuchadnezzar ruled, and all the glory of it, were bestowed upon him by “the most high God,” and that all his great power among the people of the earth was due simply to “the majesty that he gave him.” The real acceptance of this truth removes all ground for pride and self-glorification. “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” Daniel then reminded Belshazzar of the self-exaltation and the pride of Nebuchadnezzar, and how they led to the loss of his kingdom and his place as a man among men, until he learned the lesson that “all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field,” and that the God of heaven is to be recognized as “over all, and through all, and in all.” But these facts were mentioned simply as preliminary to the personal message which was to be given to Belshazzar himself. In the experiences of Nebuchadnezzar the gospel of the kingdom, the greatness of God, and the nothingness of man, had been preached, and by the royal proclamation these truths had been spread abroad in all the earth. No man could hear of these things and escape the responsibility which a knowledge of the truth involves. By his acceptance or rejection of the message which had thus been proclaimed in Babylon, every man determined his own future. He would either glorify God and humble himself, or he would exalt himself in place of God. And the course which the king and his lords might take would determine the fate of the nation. The reason for the fall of Babylon of the Chaldees is plainly stated. The gospel of the kingdom had been presented in a threefold message, revealing the true God, his saving power, and his sovereignty in both heaven and earth, and all the people had thus been called upon to “give unto the Lord glory and strength,” to “give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.” Belshazzar knew all this, and yet he lifted up himself against the Lord of heaven, and did not glorify him. In thus refusing to give unto God what was his due, and to acknowledge him as King over all, he deprived himself of that glory and honor with which God crowns his loyal subjects; and thus having no longer the power of a ruler, he lost his kingdom. The gods which he praised were a falsehood. “Eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not.” Thus he “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.” So Babylon of the Chaldees fell because man was put in the place of God, a lie in the place of the truth, and glory was not given to God. We have already seen that this history of Babylon is also a prophecy, and that the experiences of ancient Babylon are to be repeated in modern Babylon. Thus we are able clearly to see in this lesson the cause of the fall of Babylon in our own time. In the great threefold message, recorded in Rev. 14: 6–12, which is the everlasting gospel to be preached in all the world, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord’s coming, we have the same gospel of the kingdom set forth which was preached in Babylon. “Every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” are called upon to “fear God and give glory to him,” and to recognize the Creator as the only object of worship. This is followed by the proclamation, equally extensive, that “fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, which hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” From the experiences of Nebuchadnezzar, as given in the book of Daniel, and the lessons which were taught to him, we learn what it really means to fear God and give glory to him, so that for a full understanding of what this gospel message includes we must study the gospel of the kingdom as preached to Nebuchadnezzar. Furthermore, if we would understand the cause of the fall of Babylon in this time, we must note the cause of its fall in the olden time. In both instances the rejection of the gospel message and the failure to give glory to God result in the fall. And in both instances the rejection of the gospel message is shown by the exaltation of self, the putting of man in the place of God. In the time of Belshazzar this refusal of the gospel invitation to give glory to God and to worship the Creator was shown in open and gross idolatry. They “praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.” “Knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.” In the Babylon of to-day the apostasy from God is revealed in the working out of the same principle under a different form. Instead of deifying their own imaginations, or reasonings, by putting them into some material form, and then worshiping the work of their own hands, there has been such a perversion of the gospel, which is professedly accepted, by substituting tradition for the word of God, by putting man’s idea of God and his character in place of the revelation made, by teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, that the true God is not worshiped any more than in Belshazzar’s time. Now, as then, there are those in Babylon who are loyal to the living God, and obedient to the truth of the gospel, who are witnesses for the principles of righteousness, but the very12essence of idolatry pervades the hearts and minds of the great majority. The true God is distinguished from all false gods by the fact that he is the Creator. “For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens.” And he himself has given a sign by which he may be known and acknowledged as the true God: “And hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” His Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, now commonly called Saturday. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” It was instituted as a memorial of his original creative work, and is a sign of his new creative work through which we are made new creatures in Christ Jesus. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” “He appointed a memorial for his wondrous deeds.” “Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” But in the great falling away and the revealing of the man of sin, “who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God,” the true Sabbath was set aside, and the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, was substituted in its place; and this without any divine authority whatsoever. In the great Reformation of the sixteenth century, principles were adopted which, if only carried out, would have led to a return to the genuine Sabbath of the Lord, but the work was not actually extended so far as this. In the message that is now going forth to all the world, calling upon all men to “worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters,” this Sabbath reform is found as the testing truth. Those who are willing to accept the gospel of the kingdom, as it is now being preached to all the world, to submit to God as their King, and the law of his life as the controlling power in all their conduct, and thus give to the word of God its rightful place as above all human tradition, will gladly accept his sign of loyalty, and will be found observing the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath of the Lord. This will be simply the outward expression of the inward experience of the fullness of justification by faith in the work of God for man through Jesus Christ, and of complete deliverance through the creative power of God from sin and all its consequences. This reform will involve the principles of all reform from the ways of Babylon, and an entire separation from all the perversions of gospel truth brought in by her. In this way only will there be deliverance when “with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.” Even now the call is heard, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. . . . Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.” Oh that every one who reads these lines might accept in its fullness the truth as it is in Jesus, and stand in modern Babylon, like Daniel of old, as a faithful witness to the gospel of the kingdom, a loyal worshiper of the true God amid all the surrounding idolatry. “By their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” On that last night of feasting, Belshazzar and his lords became drunken with the wine of Babylon, and so perished in the downfall of their city. With a false feeling of peace and safety they gave themselves up to the fullest gratification of appetite and passion, and then, in the very midst of their revelry, and as a consequence of it, there came sudden destruction. Looking forward to the time when this history would be repeated, the Saviour gave this warning: “But take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare: for so shall it come upon all them that dwell on the face of all the earth. But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” W. W. P.